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| - A long-time friend who takes me out to dinner every birthday asked where I wanted to go this year. I picked a place I never heard of called "All Pierogi Kitchen". Wow. What a treat! I (we) had dill pickle soup with kielbasa, onion and potato. Main course dishes included kapusta zasmazana, go??bki, fresh homemade kielbasa, handmade pierogi (my choice was sauerkraut/mushroom and farmers cheese), placki kartoflane, and to drink a strong bitter soda pop made with rye bread. Thought we would have left-overs ... nope, not a crumb left.
All Pierogi Kitchen is located in a typical stripmall in Mesa. It's obvious they put some thought and effort into the place; it has a feeling of being well-established. It feels very much family owned, which means some people will probably complain that they don't serve hamburgers and that their staff aren't pretentious pros. There is no way you can fake ethnic foods from middle Europe, sorry, you can't just run down to Costco and buy a carton of pierogies. They have to be hand-made. And unless you are an adventuresome person who routinely likes to try new and different foods, you are probably the opposite (like me) who was raised on these foods and you can't BS us ... it's either real and authentic or it's not. And this place is real.
Now - is it as good as my mom or gramma used to make? A bolt of lightning from Heaven would strike me down if I said it was as good, and yeah for me some of it was a little bland but not by a lot. But I wasn't disappointed in anything except for one small quibble ... the ultra-tiny scoop of sauerkraut was ridiculously small. Sauerkraut is cheap and plentiful, why be so stingy with it?
Their menu isn't very deep, but that's okay, after all they do advertise that they specialize in pierogi. And some of their combinations left me wishing I could "do it my way" more ... and they make a big point of NO SUBSTITUTIONS, which is a shame at such a small place.
Price? That's a quandary. Some people might find it slightly high. I didn't, you can and will pay a LOT more at places like Olive Garden, Denny's, Claim Jumper and other "chain" restaurants for me-too frozen food so I don't mind doing my part to keeping a local family business that cooks homemade fresh food in business. They need to make a profit because they can't buy truckloads of food at a time and in fact the percentage they pay for overhead is proportionately higher than national chains. I consider All Pierogi Kitchen's prices to be fair and the amount of food served to be a good value.
Oh yeah, one more thing. The accordion player. Try to be there when he is performing, he's very good and isn't so loud to be obtrusive. Everyone in the place seemed to know him and he was very friendly when he said hi to us.
Would I recommend anything to the owners? Yes, two things ... please dim the lights a little. And in winter please turn the heat up a little, our food got cold much too quickly in the chilly air.
All Pierogi Kitchen - highly recommended, will be back for sure.
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